Landmark Twitter libel case...Courtney Love told the court she was trying to direct message two people when she posted claims that her lawyer had been "bought off" to Twitter. Source: AP

COURTNEY Love has told a jury under oath that she's not "reckless.

Love took the stand in New York in her landmark libel case and said it was an accident when she publicly suggested in a June 2010 Twitter post that her ex-lawyer Rhonda Holmes had been “bought off”.

Love said that she was a “computer retard” who thought she was sending a private message to two Twitter users at the same time, reports the New York Daily News.

“Now I know how to (direct message) perfectly,” she said. “Then I didn't know how to (direct message) perfectly.”

Holmes is suing Love for unspecified damages in the first Twitter libel - or “twibel” - case to go before a jury.

Love had hired Holmes in late 2008 to hunt down lawyers and accountants suspected of “looting” her late husband Kurt Cobain’s estate.

Holmes claims she was fired because she asked Love to stay clean and sober, but that Love was “angry” and “retaliated” with the tweet because Holmes moved on to other clients.

Love, who appeared nervous during her testimony, said she considered Holmes a friend who had “abandoned” her.

She said Holmes was one of the few people who believed her conspiracy claims, and that the lawyer's prior help and support was “the biggest deal ever”.

“It was like I wasn't wearing a tinfoil hat anymore,” she said.

Love broke down crying when she described going into her daughter Frances Bean's room to say things would get better with Holmes in their corner.

“She could talk about boys again and have me back as her mother,” Love said.

She called Holmes her “saviour” and “white knight” and said she never intended to fire the lawyer.

“To this day, to this trial, I would have her come back in a second,” Love said. “I just didn't understand why she left.”

Under cross examination by famed libel lawyer Barry Langberg, Love admitted she was "angry" the night she wrote the tweet and that she also “probably” told Britney Spears' former manager Sam Lutfi that she thought Holmes had been “bought off”.

Langberg asked if Love considered her tweet “reckless” considering Holmes was a friend as well as a lawyer dependent on her professional reputation.

“I believed it when I said it,” she testified. “I don't think so.”

Of the period, Love had told David Letterman, “I did a lot of cocaine back then. I had bad people around me.”

Love said she went to rehab, wrote apology letters and got her life back on track.

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